We recently bought a Blackmagic Design Pocket Cinema Camera
This is what we came up with on our first tests in the office.
We shot set up a very basic 3 point lighting set up with one of our interns Phil. We compared the following:
Blackmagic 10-bit 422 Prores
Blackmagic 12-bit RAW cDNG
Canon 5D mkii 8-bit 420 H264
All of the footage was shot on a Canon IS 24-110 Lens
Blackmagic 10-bit 422 Prores
The footage straight off of the camera is extremely flat but has buckets of room to push it in Resolve.
Blackmagic 12-bit RAW cDNG
The RAW files of the BMPCC give a crazy amount of room in post for grading. We went for a very cinematic grade on the top image and a netural grade below. Both of them seem to show a huge amount of detail for a £700 camera.
This was just to show what you lose in terms of colour data when you upload to YouTube.
Canon 5D mkii 8-bit 420 H264
This was shot with Magic Lantern firmware. The footage off the camera is a little warm although it was set to the same white balance as the BMPCC (3200K). It looks pretty close to the BMPCC once graded and, as you’ll know, you could use the footage straight off the Canon 5D without grading but the BMPCC will always needs a grade or LUT.
Comparisons
Zoom into these images to really see the difference. If the footage is to be uploaded to YouTube then it’s not going to be a huge difference to most end users. However, there is definitely more detail in the BMPCC. As shown below.
All in all, what amazes me is the power of the RAW footage from the BMPCC. It gives a really nice “film” look from a £700 camera! It’s as big a game changer as the 5D was when it first launched IMHO.
However, unlike the where the 5D was a camera that allowed the inexperienced user to go out and shoot great footage on a camera that was affordable and learn as they went along… The BMPCC isn’t a camera for the inexperienced, it is awful to use and the interface is terrible. You couldn’t use it in the field as its just not practical. However, if you take your time on the shoot and set up your shot properly like you would if you were shooting on something a lot higher end (think RED/Alexa) then I think you could get images with it that you wouldn’t believe came out of something so small.
MY TIP
Treat it like a £70,000 camera and not a £700 camera and it will give you footage that you can pass off as such.
To see the RAW footage in action click here
